Bridge for Dummies

Rating:
Summary: Become a master at Bridge!
Review: "Simply the best... If a student wants a painless route to understanding the essentials of the game, he must choose "Bridge for Dummies™" -Bobby Wolff, President, World Bridge Federation, Bridge Columnist

Would you like to play a card game more challenging than Old Maid, Go Fish, or War? Are you fascinated by the bridge columns in your local newspaper? If you'd like to take the plunge and join the millions of bridge players worldwide, here's your chance!

With "Bridge for Dummies™" at your side, you'll have plenty of expert tips, techniques, and suggestions to help you master this challenging game. With dozens of sample hands and helpful diagrams, you'll be taking tricks in no time!

By reading "Bridge for Dummies™", you'll discover how to:

*Determine how many tricks you can take with your hand

*Declare the best bid to get your game started

*Make your contracts by establishing and taking tricks

*Interpret your partner's bids and respond to them appropriately

*Decipher bridge terminology and talk like a pro

*Secure the winning opening lead to so you can get off to a great start

*Use the power of preemptive bids and other interference bids to disrupt your opponents' communication

*Purchase and play computer bridge games

*Locate online bridge stuff with a listing of Web site forums and e-mail bridge games

Rating:
Summary: Great Investment
Review: A great book for people such as myself who know nothing about about bridge. I think it is great that he save auctioning techniques until the very end. It's at this point that auctioning makes more sense.

Rating:
Summary: Great Investment
Review: A great book for people such as myself who know nothing about about bridge. I think it is great that he save auctioning techniques until the very end. It's at this point that auctioning makes more sense.

Rating:
Summary: very readable
Review: Before I bought this book, I could not imagine that a bridge instruction book can be written in such a fun and humorous way. And fun is not the only element this book can offer, it really teaches a beginner well how to play bridge. I strongly recommend this one to everybody who tries to learn playing bridge.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide for bridge novices
Review: Don't assume this book is beneath you just because of the title. It's written by Eddie Kantar, one of the best modern bridge authors. It's a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to basic bridge bidding and play.

I came across this book after playing party bridge for several years. Although much of it was review for me, I did pick up a number of pointers to sharpen my game. Kantar breaks down the bidding in a very logical fashion. As someone who has tried (and occasionally failed) to teach the game to a number of friends over the years, I appreciated his elegant approach.

That said, this book is probably not the best tutorial for people who know literally nothing about bridge. There's not enough overview to provide the "big picture" for total beginners. Kantar quickly dives down into the detail of how to bid particular kinds of hands. If you've tried playing bridge even a few times, though, you should have enough context to follow along.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide for bridge novices
Review: Don't assume this book is beneath you just because of the title. It's written by Eddie Kantar, one of the best modern bridge authors. It's a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to basic bridge bidding and play.

I came across this book after playing party bridge for several years. Although much of it was review for me, I did pick up a number of pointers to sharpen my game. Kantar breaks down the bidding in a very logical fashion. As someone who has tried (and occasionally failed) to teach the game to a number of friends over the years, I appreciated his elegant approach.

That said, this book is probably not the best tutorial for people who know literally nothing about bridge. There's not enough overview to provide the "big picture" for total beginners. Kantar quickly dives down into the detail of how to bid particular kinds of hands. If you've tried playing bridge even a few times, though, you should have enough context to follow along.

Rating:
Summary: Ditto: Great approach to teaching a sophisticated game
Review: I am also new to bridge, and have also tried several other books on the subject. The three that I tried previously started with covering hand evaluation and bidding. By the time I get to the sections on "Responding to Responses at No Trump", I was getting lost. Kanter's approach is just the opposite. He teaches the mechanics of playing the hand first, THEN teaches how to evaluate the hand and bid. This is a great approach because once you learn how the play should be done, you are in a much better position to understand WHY you should evaluate and bid the way a hand demands you should. I've only studied the first 65 pages or so, but can already see a dramatic improvement in my bidding and my play. I can't wait to continue to study this great book.

Overall, a terrific approach to teaching this great game. I can't wait to read some of Kanter's other books as well.

Addendum: I continue to read and carefully study the chapters on play which preceed the chapters on bidding. There is lots of great material here. Don't let the "For Dummies" title fool you. This is a great book by a great teacher.

Rating:
Summary: Logical Teaching Plan Amid a Humorous Tone
Review: I am new to Bridge, although I have played Chess and Hearts for 40 years. I first started wading through other Bridge books and got bogged down in bidding conventions before the authors finally explained the objective for which we were contracting. Taking tricks is the objective. Kantar begins by explaining how to cleverly make contracts, while temporarily sidestepping how those contracts are reached. Only after that does he ease us into the bidding conventions. Some Chess books make a similar mistake. They teach openings, middle game, and endings in that order. One needs to first grasp the later stages of a game before he sees meaning behind preparatory moves. Eddie does it all the right way. And his breezy humorous style makes the learning process a pleasure.

Rating:
Summary: Logical Teaching Plan Amid a Humorous Tone
Review: I am new to Bridge, although I have played Chess and Hearts for 40 years. I first started wading through other Bridge books and got bogged down in bidding conventions before the authors finally explained the objective for which we were contracting. Taking tricks is the objective. Kantar begins by explaining how to cleverly make contracts, while temporarily sidestepping how those contracts are reached. Only after that does he ease us into the bidding conventions. Some Chess books make a similar mistake. They teach openings, middle game, and endings in that order. One needs to first grasp the later stages of a game before he sees meaning behind preparatory moves. Eddie does it all the right way. And his breezy humorous style makes the learning process a pleasure.

Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners
Review: I don't recommend this book for people who are completely new to bridge, despite the title, which suggested to me that it was appropriate as a beginning book. To give one example -- a new player needs to know how to make an opening bid. This book has a thirty page chapter on the opening bid. Once one has memorized that, then there's another thirty page chapter on responding. It would be a lot more helpful to give a few rules of thumb, then add rules a few at a time as the reader practices. One thing I learned -- don't buy a book as a beginner based upon reviews by experienced players -- they can't remember anymore what it was like to be new at the game! This book may be okay as a reference, but certainly not as a way to get started.